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Don’t Let Coronavirus Devastate Refugee Camps

Don’t Let Coronavirus Devastate Refugee Camps

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- As the coronavirus pandemic continues, Bloomberg Opinion will be running a series of features by our columnists that consider the long-term consequences of the crisis. This column is part of a package on the impact that the spread of Covid-19 will have on immigration. For more, see Pankaj Mishra on how the coronavirus may change global attitudes toward immigration, and the Bloomberg Editorial Board on the post-pandemic changes needed to fix U.S. immigration policy.  

A peculiar fact about the coronavirus catastrophe so far is that the world’s poorest have largely been spared the worst. Of the 10 countries with the most deaths to date, nearly all are among the wealthiest. But if the virus has overwhelmed places with modern hospitals and world-class medical infrastructure — as anyone who’s been in New York or Milan recently can attest — it could do still more catastrophic damage in places where the health-care system is fragile to start with. Perhaps nowhere is the risk greater than in the world’s refugee camps.

Some 2.6 million refugees live in more than 100 such camps worldwide. Although that’s just a small fraction of the refugee population, which totals some 26 million, people in camps face outsized risks during a pandemic. Like cruise ships, which have been notorious coronavirus hotbeds, refugee camps are generally overcrowded. (In many of them, the population density far outstrips that of Manhattan in New York City.) Unlike cruise ships, they often lack basic sanitary infrastructure — several hundred people, for instance, might rely on just one water source. Meanwhile, the shortages of personal protective equipment (the now infamous PPE) that have bedeviled the rich world are far worse in camps, and advanced care is “scarce to nonexistent,” according to the advocacy group Refugees International. Some countries have dealt with coronavirus by putting camps under lockdown, making medical care even further out of reach.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that few of the world’s camps are yet dealing with contagion on the scale of the Diamond Princess (where 17% onboard became infected), or Ohio’s Marion Correctional Institution (where, horribly, more than 80% of inmates are sick). The world has time to prepare. And it must — for humanitarian reasons, but also because of self-interest. Coronavirus outbreaks in camps would sow instability and turmoil in host countries, disrupt the process of refugee resettlement and set economic development back by decades. They could also spread the virus to larger national populations. As Singapore has shown, even the most advanced health-care systems can buckle if they let noncitizens fall through the cracks.

Fortunately, the world can take action during this crisis — by helping refugees keep their distance, stay healthy before the virus strikes and stay informed.

Traditional social distancing may be impossible in camps, as workers and refugees alike have noted, but some solutions are still at hand. Most drastically, states could “evacuate” their overcrowded refugee facilities, as Doctors Without Borders and others have urged Greece to do. While that’s unlikely to happen on a broad scale, Greece has begun transferring unaccompanied children to Germany and Luxembourg — part of a larger E.U. initiative ­— and has pledged to relocate some 2,400 of the most vulnerable refugees.

Unfortunately, most camps are in places that lack the resources of the European Union, or even Greece (which is far from a model host country). Where states are unable or unwilling to act, the rest of the world must. Rich countries that lack the political will to accept new refugees could, at the very least, boost funding to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is building quarantine and isolation units in camps. The UN and NGOs are also taking the lead in relieving congestion — doing things like delivering soap door to door via donkey, as is happening in camps in eastern Sudan.

People who don’t have their food, water and basic sanitary needs met are also vulnerable to all sorts of illnesses, including Covid-19. So meeting those basic needs is a crucial preventative measure. The UNHCR, to its credit, has prioritized improving water and hygiene infrastructure in camps, as have many NGOs. Unfortunately, due to a coronavirus-related funding shortfall, the World Food Program has reportedly cut food rations for refugees in Uganda by 30%. Rations are hardly luxurious to start with, so harsh cuts could lead to malnutrition — leaving refugees with weakened immune systems at the worst possible time.

Countries struggling with their own Covid-19 crises will be tempted to cut funding to agencies and NGOs that provide basic services to refugees. That’s a terrible idea. The global economy may not be flush right now, but investing in nutrition and sanitation would prevent even costlier global catastrophes in the future. And closing their hospitals to refugees would likewise be misguided: Shutting out non-citizens can have disastrous consequences for public health. If wealthy countries care about their own self-interest, they should be inclusive as well as break with their woeful tradition of skimping on aid during recessions. Because as we all know, the coronavirus respects no borders.

One other critical thing the world can do is improve communications and connectivity in refugee camps. Bangladesh offers a case study in what not to do. Home to the world’s largest complex of refugee camps, Bangladesh hosts some 900,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. Since last autumn, it has banned the internet in camps and restricted mobile-phone access to refugees. As a result, misinformation about what residents call the “moronavirus,” or “dying virus” in Rohingya, is rampant. Aid workers say they can’t spread important health information; human rights campaigners say the restrictions put lives at risk.

In the case of Bangladesh, global pressure campaigns could be successful. “The way to make progress is to have senior international and foreign government officials engage with Bangladeshi leaders and try to make the case that these kinds of restrictions don’t serve the interests of the government of Bangladesh,” says Eric Schwartz, president of Refugees International. Rumors increase the likelihood of panic — with potentially terrible consequences. Behind-the-scenes pressure and public expressions of concern could push Bangladesh to reconsider.

In other countries, NGOs are taking creative approaches to improving communications, by scaling up existing online platforms to reach more refugees, or sending text messages with health information in local languages. True, not all camps are in places with strong communications infrastructure. In those cases, and in others, health information campaigns may take on more traditional forms — for example, in Mexico, hand-painted signs.

Protecting the world’s most vulnerable people from a pandemic costs money. Sadly, the world hasn’t been fast to give. The United Nations has appealed for an additional $2 billion to deal with Covid-related humanitarian needs, and has received less than half of that — including a meager $95 million from the United States. (Germany, with one-quarter the population, has contributed some $50 million more.) Schwartz notes that Congress has allocated some $900 million for humanitarian aid as part of its coronavirus relief packages — which comes to just .03% of the roughly $3 trillion total. 

In March, the UN and the International Organization for Migration suspended refugee resettlement worldwide. That decision may reflect both an abundance of medical caution and an acknowledgment of political realities in resettlement countries. But locking the exits on some of the world’s most desperate people and then leaving them more vulnerable to a pandemic they did nothing to create is not just an act of callous indifference. It is also a potential strategic blunder: Some of the world’s biggest refugee camps are in states grappling with terrorist threats (Kenya, Jordan and Pakistan) or the aftershocks of civil wars and atrocities (South Sudan and Bangladesh). They shouldn’t be weakened any further by having to cope with a virus whose spread would be even more difficult to stop in such tight and desperate quarters. “We know how to deal with these issues, but the critical missing piece is adequate resourcing,” says Schwartz. If only out of self-interest, that’s a gap that the rich world can afford to fill.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Tracy Walsh is an editor for Bloomberg Opinion. She was an editor at the Dish and Euromoney Institutional Investor.

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